Free Falling
by Pazel
Summary: Matt's dead, and he's not sure where he's going. All he knows is the fall isn't fun and a booming voice can hear his thoughts. R&R.
1. Death

Death.

It isn't what everyone thinks it is. It's not a dark tunnel you walk down until you get to a bright white light, all the while people from your past are calling your name, encouraging you forward.

That's not it at all. It's falling so fast, your stomach twists like when you go down a sixty-five foot drop on a roller coaster. Except, you're just falling- free falling, just like that one song- trying to get a hold of something. But there's nothing there, and all the while you can't help but wonder if your going to hell, because hell is supposed to be below us, right? And all around you is darkness. Sheer, impenetrable blackness.

At first, the drop is unbearable. All you want to do is scream, but the air is all in your face so you can barely breathe. All you can do is flail like a fish out of water and beg the ending to this fall isn't as painful as you're imagining it would be, although I think my gunshot death was probably worse than the hit I could take any minute. You know you're dead, so it's not like you'll die again. And if you do, well, all you can guess is that you'll start falling again. And then it'll start over again, until the drop no longer twists your stomach and your throat is sore from all the screaming you've forced out, regardless of how hard it is to scream with all the air in your face.

Hello, I'm Matt. I've been falling for about ten minutes now, and I-

And then I stopped falling.

I didn't hit the ground, so there was no pain. I simply stopped falling. I was just floating in mid air, surrounded by the black of a night with no moon, stars, or street lights. Below me was no ground, above me was no sky. There wasn't even another soul, or whatever I am, near me.

"Mail." The voice was so loud, it echoed off the nothingness of this black space.

I blinked. It had been so long since someone had called me that. At first, I looked around to make sure no enemies had heard. Then I remembered it didn't matter, anyway.

"Mail," it called again. The voice was definitely masculine. God?

"I can hear you, you know."

A chuckle as loud as thunder followed. "Do you know where you are?"

I had to think on that one. Heaven? I didn't know. Hell? Probably, but that Satan sure had a good sense of humor. "Game over?"

Another chuckle. "This is heaven."

The blackness around me melted away and it became a bright white. There was a television. A television in heaven? Sweet. Except this was no ordinary television. It was at least six feet taller than I, and just as wide. I wondered how the picture came through- you know, if it was all static or if it was as good as high-def. I'd love to play a Wii on this bad boy. I ran over to it and placed my gloved palms on the screen.I think I had started drooling. Where were the game systems?!

"No, Matt. This is to see your loved ones."

I cringed. Could the voice read my thoughts? My thoughts were private. Well, I didn't really care whether or not they were private, but for the sake of others around me, I figured it was for the best. For a split second, I thought about the magazines I had hidden under my bed...

"Turn it on."

There was a clicker on the floor. I pressed the power button. There was a noise that told me it turned on, but the screen stayed black. Realization hit me like a truck and I sat down.

"There's.. no one," I muttered. I wasn't sad, really, because I had lived knowing this. It was a bit of a buzz-kill, though. But, where was Mello? He was my best friend, after all.

"He's dead."

I figured.

"He can't come."

I knew that. "Can I go to him?"

The voice didn't answer.

"He's my best friend. I don't want to spend eternity all alone."

"Eternal damnation is what you're asking for. Here, you can meet your parents. Here, you can see Watari. Here, you can see L."

I thought about it. Watari? L? Mom and Dad? I could be with them all, like a big reunion of the people I missed most. I could be with them, leaving Mello behind. "Eternal damnation is nothing. It would be the same as if I lived forever, stuck at eighteen. I lived in hell. Well, that's a little dramatic. It was a fun hell, at times."

"You can never come back."

"What is this? All Dogs Go To Heaven? Seriously, if Charlie didn't stay for that sexy whippet that was so obviously in heat, I'm not staying for parents who left me behind. Tell L and Watari I said 'hi'. Now, get me outta here."

Then I fell again, but this time it was different. There was no twisting feeling in my stomach, and I realized there was no air in my face. Last time, I hadn't been _falling_, I had been pulled upwards. _Now_ I was falling, my back to the air. With each second, my body got warmer until I was on fire. When I began to scream from the pain, I fell to a hard ground below.

"...Matt?" Mello stood over me. I could feel him watching me.

I couldn't move for a while because of the pain, but when I could, I looked up. "Mello. Hi."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Why are you here?"

I sat up and rubbed my head where it had bashed against the ground. "Heaven... didn't have anything good on television."

Mello smirked. "This place doesn't have television." Mello didn't call it hell. He had never been very religious. That cross he wore just made him feel bad ass. Go figure. Of course, we had no reason to think this was hell. It could have been something else completely.

"Heaven might as well not have one," I told him. It was hot here; the ground burned to ashes. There was no booming voice, which led me to believe it wasn't hell. Satan was in hell. At least Mello was here. It was better than being with parents who died before I could remember them, looking at a fallen hero, or watching a black screen all day. for all of eternity

"I'm thirsty," Mello whined. Then he sighed. There was no water here. No relief from anything. But at least I was with my best friend.


	2. Eternity

"Hey, Matt?" Mello began. It was our third day in... here.

"What?"

"Do you remember when we were kids?"

I paused before answering to wonder where he was going with this. "Yeah. Why?"

"Do you remember when we cut Roger's hair when he was sleeping? And what he did when he woke up?"

I remembered that. He had been so mad that he forced us to wash the kitchen until he could see himself in the black iron wood stoves the chefs kept specially for when they cooked pizza. laughed a little. The air was thin, so it was hard to breathe. The sun was out, just like it always was, shining its burning hot rays down on us.

"I was just thinking about that. I've been thinking a lot lately. You know, about things I didn't do and things I did. Things that I could have done differently. And the 'what if's"

I could have snorted. "'What if's? You? I didn't think you had 'what if's"

"What if I hadn't kidnapped that girl Takada. What if I hadn't taken off my helmet in front of her. What if my parents hadn't died. What if I wasn't a genius. What if I had never left Germany... things like that."

I raised my eyebrows. "I didn't know you were German."

"Apparently I am. Roger said so. I don't know much myself."

I looked away, the sun glinting off my goggles. I squinted as beads of sweat rolled down my forehead. My hair was matted to me, around my neck and forehead. The top of my head was burning hot.

Mello was looking at the ground we both sat on. He was, like in life, sprawled out. I wondered how he could stand being in tight leather in this heat. Once more, I scanned the landscape, looking for a large rock, a tree... anything that provided shade. There was nothing. Just flat, barren land. No tree could live here, and there were no large rocks. God only knows why. We would have gone looking, but the heat had robbed even Mello of his energy.

"Do you remember when that girl broke up with you? What was her name... Kade, or something?" I asked with a sigh.

Mello smiled at a joke I didn't get. "Yeah. She was hot. It pissed me off, too. I actually liked her. She wasn't one of those gossipy bitches, and she actually had a brain. And she was hot. Never did find out what I did wrong." Mello's only movement in his weak state was a tilt of his head in my direction.

I wiped sweat off my forehead. My arm fell exhaustedly to the ground and tingled like it had fallen asleep. I felt like I was going to fall over sideways. In fact, I swayed, but caught myself.

"I know why she broke up with you," I told him. The sentence drug on as I tried to turn the volume up on my voice, but my throat was so dry and cracked, it was just a murmur. Not to mention the guilty tone to my voice that I couldn't hide.

Mello turned to me, his whole body twisting and suspicious. I could see his muscles move gracefully under the leather, and I couldn't help but frown. He had always had the coolest body a male could ever have: great muscles without looking like a fucking body builder- because that shit was disgusting; hip bones that protruded enough to keep him from looking like a prepubescent girl; and looks that could kill.

Not that I looked his body, or anything. Or judged other men's bodies.

"Well?" he asked impatiently. We had eternity to talk, and he was still impatient.

"All right, all right. Jeez, Mello, don't have an aneurism."

I didn't speak for a long time. Maybe it was because I was too guilty to tell him. Maybe I was too afraid. Maybe it was because watching the anger in him grow gave me a sadistic high.

"Tell me, will you?" he yelled. Well, his yell was really an angry whisper. This made me wonder how long it would be before our voices stopped working completely. How long would we sit in silence, without so much as bread and water in our prison?

"Why did she break up with me?" he repeated.

I took in a deep breath. "I told her to."

Mello's eyebrows raised, but then fell. His face grew hard, but I knew it was only because there was no more energy in him to show his emotions. He saved his energy to talk and asked, "why?"

My shoulders lifted slightly- a shrug. "Jealousy."

He smirked. "Why would you be jealous?"

"You were all, 'Kade this, Kade that. Oh, Kade is so pretty! Oh, Kade is so smart! Oh, Kade likes green, not blue, Matt, get the other shirt! Did you buy anything for Kade's birthday, Matt? Oh, sorry, Matt, I can't hang out with you today. Kade's alive and breathing so I have to let her sit on my lap and stare at her drooling as if I had never seen a girl bef-"

"Hey!" Mello interrupted angrily. "I never let her sit on my lap. And her name was Kane." He laughed, and I joined in.

Night came. This place was truly a desert. It was freezing cold, to the point where our fingertips were a light blue. We had to sleep close together to keep the cold away. We would- for lack of a better word- snuggle to use the body heat as our only way to keep warm. When the sun came up, fire would ignite us once again, but for now, we had to live through the cold death.

I almost cried out when I realized it would be like this forever.

--

The sun came up, and the sun went down, each day bringing a new nothingness.

--

Mello and I went through several different topics, such as our ideal family; the people we left behind; Kira; heaven; religion; politics; memories; our real names; and mostly Near. Then, one day, our voices refused to work.

Mello had opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. If it hadn't been for his panicked expression and the hands he placed on his throat, I would have thought he had just thought twice and decided to keep quiet. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It was totally dry. I had forgotten what saliva felt like. How long had we been dead? No more than three weeks.

My throat felt like the blazing sun. I moved my tongue around, attempting to create some spit, but nothing happened. I closed my eyes tight. For a minute, I thought I was going to cry. Then I realized that if I had no spit, I had no tears. All I had was sweat, and I feared even that would run out. I touched my neck and realized it already had. My neck was dry as the land I sat on.

I gingerly touched my throat. All my life, I had never cried. Things didn't sadden me like they should. I had never felt like I had to break down and have myself a good cry. Men didn't think that way, especially men raised in Wammy's.

We didn't, but for the first time in my life, I felt like I could scream out, curse God, cry, and beg to die. But I was already dead.

Nothing could save me here.

And I didn't even have my PSP.


	3. Delusion

I lay on the ground. It had been a year.

I no longer had any energy to do anything except breathe, and even that had become a challenge. I kept my eyes closed all day because I didn't have the energy to blink. The heat of the day was now my only friend. It was with me all the time. It was there for me, no matter what. It never let me be alone. Never. With the heat, I'd never be lonely.

I rolled closer to the boy at night when it was too cold to bear, and rolled away when it was too hot. I wanted to be alone with my best friend the heat. And I wanted an explanation of why it left me each night, to feel so alone.

I couldn't think anymore. I didn't even know who I was or where I was. I didn't know if I was dead or not, but I prayed every night to die. Once, I looked over to him, who was in the same shape as I, and wondered who he was.

I say I did it this only once because I couldn't open my eyes again. I still didn't know who the strange, leather-clad boy was, but I couldn't care. I didn't have the will power. All I needed was the heat. That was my best friend.

Please end, please end. Where am I? Who am I? Who is the boy next to me? Why do I feel like I know him?

Those thoughts ran through my mind every day. Those were all I could muster. They were thought slowly and with a large time period in between. Sometimes my exhausted mind didn't even finish the day's thoughts. Instead, I used all the energy I saved up from doing nothing all day to roll over to the boy, who would do the same.

Once, I had enough energy to wonder if the boy beside me thought the same as I. I accused him of being the heat's best friend. But the thought vanished quickly.

All thoughts were vanishing quickly.

Would the day come that I couldn't think at all?

I prayed once, in the frost of the night, that that wouldn't happen.

It couldn't hap-

**THE END**


	4. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

God looked down at the scene so far below Him.

"How sad. How very sad," He mumbled. "Another angel fallen due to loyalty to the wrong person."

"Ah. But you saw that coming," L commented. "You knew, the moment Mello wrote in the Death Note, that Matt would never be one of us."

"That I did," God replied. "But I still had hope, just like I have hope for every lost cause."

L nodded, his eyes filled with pity for Matt's soul. "Do they still feel the heat and the cold?"

God drew in a deep breath. "They will always. But they can't move. They can't think. Nothing except the pain of the two extreme temperatures can be felt. And it will be like this for all of eternity."

L frowned as he watched the television screen. "Why can we see them, but Matt couldn't see Mello?"

"It's simple, really," God replied. "There is no pain in heaven."

"Oh. I see what you mean," L said with a nod. "If Matt saw Mello there, he would have been in pain."

"Yes. So I couldn't allow it. I couldn't allow his soul to be in pain. He was in my hands. In my care. If he were here now, he would have been suffering terribly."

"I understand," L mumbled as he turned off the television. "I have no one to watch, either."

"It doesn't pain you, though, because Watari is here. Matt had Mello. If Watari was down there, how would you feel?"

L bit his thumb. "I'd feel worse than if I was accused of being Kira."

God sighed. "At least they're together."

"Yes. Friendship means being in pain together," L said, then added quickly, "or so I've heard."

God smiled. "Even if you don't know that it's your best friend right next to you." Then his face went serious. "It's sad, that the heat drove them both insane."

"It's better for them both, though."

"Yes. I do believe it's better than being alone forever."

In the background, the parents of Matt sat with proud smiles.


End file.
